Lionman

The Venus of Willendorf was created circa 28.000-25.000 BCE, in Lower Austria. I have drawn it from 3 sides. Itis an 11.1-centimetre-tall (4.4 in) and I made sure that the Venus of my drawing is exactly 11.1 centimetres tall. What do you see? You see a faceless woman with large breasts, big hips, missing feet, and two tiny arms resting on the Venus’s breasts. Such unevenly distributed body fat is rare unless a disease is featured. But even if a diseased woman is shown, we can not function without a face and it is much better to have feet. This selective and exaggerated expression of features has lead to the speculation that this figurine is expressing an idea and not a person (selfies become fashionable much later). Is the Venus expressing fertility? It is hard to dismiss this assumption. Upon seeing this cute but impressive female figurine, my first reaction is ‘This woman can feed many babies’. Like my grandmother, who at WWII gave breastfeeding to her own baby and to three babies born to mothers who suffered under the food-shortages or war trauma. Having said this, a big breast-size doesn’t guarantee breastfeeding. Nursing a baby sufficiently is about milk-glands, not about fat. Still, the Venus of Willendorf has two skinny arms positioned on her large breasts. One could say, proudly resting on her breasts, as if to show that her breasts are her biggest treasure. This Venus is, in our eyes, related to fertility and not to sexiness, so many refer to this figurine as ‘The Woman of Willendorf’. Christopher Witcombe criticizes: “The ironic identification of these figurines as ‘Venus’ pleasantly satisfied certain assumptions at the time about the primitive, about women, and about taste”. I agree despite the possibilities that how a good looking woman looked like could have been differently defined 30.000 years ago, if such definition or feeling was lingering in the mind of prehistoric people at all. Certainly maximising the survival of babies was hugely important and with that in mind, the Venus of Willendorf would indeed be better named as the Woman or even Mother of Willendorf.

Paula Kuitenbrouwer

My original drawing and one art print is available at my Etsy and I like to point out that Potted History, at www.pottedhistory.co.uk/ has made some lovely Venus of Willendorf replicas.